In recent years, electronic appliances being used in households, such as audio-visual appliances (AV appliances), have become capable of recording not only image data, audio data and text data but also various kinds of data, and products equipped with a large-capacity storage device, such as a hard disk, have been developed. Hence, it is considered that conventional AV appliances are used for new applications, for example, applications for acquiring and storing various kinds of data, such as image data created using other AV appliances, in addition to image recording and reproducing functions using a large-capacity storage device.
A conventional remote control apparatus that remote-controls an electronic appliance, such as an AV appliance, serving as a controlled appliance using a server will be described below. FIG. 13 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the conventional remote control apparatus. FIG. 14 shows an example of the data management table of the server in the conventional remote control apparatus, and FIG. 15 shows an example of the user management table of the server thereof. FIG. 16 is a flowchart showing data acquisition processing in the conventional remote control apparatus.
In FIG. 13, a controlled appliance 100 is an electronic appliance being used in a household, such as a personal computer (PC), a tuner, a television receiver or a DVD recorder. Data transmission and reception are carried out between the controlled appliance 100 and a server 150 being connected thereto via the Internet.
In the controlled appliance 100, a communication control part 101 has a function of carrying out communication with the server 150 via the Internet. The user creates various commands at an operation part 107. A user-information storage part 106 stores a user ID (user identification number) and a user PW (user password) unique to each user. A command processing part 102 transmits a command to the server as commanded from the operation part 107. A data receiving part 103 receives the data transmitted from the server 150 via the communication control part 101. A data storage control part 104 carries out control to record the data received by the data receiving part 103 in a recording medium. A data storage part 105 is a recording medium, such as a hard disk or a DVD, and stores various kinds of data.
On the other hand, in the server 150, a communication control part 151 has a function of carrying out communication with the controlled appliance 100 via the Internet. A user management part 155 manages information regarding respective users and judges whether the command from the controlled appliance 100 is correct or not. A data filing part 152 stores various kinds of data, for example, image data including still images and moving images, and audio data. A data management part 153 is usually referred to as a file system or the like and carries out the management of the data stored in the data filing part 152. A data transmission part 154 transmits the data stored in the data filing part 152 to the controlled appliance 100.
FIG. 14 shows an example of the data management table of the data management part 153 of the server 150 in the conventional remote control apparatus. In the data management table, at least a user ID (“destination” in FIG. 14) for identifying a user and data indicating the name and storage location of the data transmitted to the user ID or the data being stored. The table is configured so that the data corresponding to the user ID can be fetched from the data filing part 152 on the basis of the management table of the data management part 153 when the server 150 receives a data acquisition request from the controlled appliance 100.
FIG. 15 shows an example of the user management table of the user management part 155 of the server 150. The user management table stores table data according to which a judgment is made as to whether the data acquisition request from the controlled appliance 100 is issued from the correct user or not, and the table data comprises at least a user ID and a user PW as data. If a login processing request or a data acquisition request is issued from the controlled appliance 100, the user management part 155 judges, using the user management table, whether the user is the correct user or not by respectively comparing the user ID and the user PW in the command with those stored therein.
The data acquisition operation in the conventional remote control apparatus configured as described above will be explained by using the flowchart of FIG. 16.
Electronic mail is a typical example of data transmission and reception via the Internet. Usually, application software for transmitting and receiving electronic mail is installed in a personal computer serving as the controlled appliance 100. When the user transmits and receives electronic mail, he starts the application software for electronic mail in the personal computer. Next, the user operates the operation part 107 and creates a data acquisition request command, for example. Hence, the command processing part 102 reads the user ID and the user PW from the user-information storage part 106 and logs into the server 150. The login processing is used to confirm the user ID and the user PW in the user management part 155 of the server 150 to judge whether the communication has been done from the correct user or not. After the login processing is finished, the command processing part 102 transmits the data acquisition request to the server 150 as commanded from the operation part 107. The data acquisition request is transmitted to the data management part 153 via the user management part 155. The data management part 153 confirms whether the data corresponding to the user ID of the user who transmitted the data acquisition request is present or not in the data stored in the data filing part 152. If the corresponding data is not present, a status indicating that there is no stored data is returned to the corresponding controlled appliance 100. If the data corresponding to the user ID is present, the data is transmitted to the data communication part 154. The data communication part 154 transmits the received data to the data receiving part 103 of the corresponding controlled appliance 100 via the communication control parts 151 and 101. The data receiving part 103 transmits the received data to the data storage control part 104. The data storage control part 104 stores the data in the data storage part 105 while adding file management information or the like required dependent on the state of a recording medium in which the data is stored. After the data storage is finished, a status indicating that the data storage is finished is returned to the server 150. After the data storage is finished, the controlled appliance 100 confirms whether other data is stored in the data filing part 152 of the server 150. If other data is present, the data is stored according to the same procedure as that described above. The above-mentioned processing is repeated until the stored data that corresponds to the user ID and is stored in the data filing part 152 of the server 150 becomes extinct.
Patent document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. JP-A-2000-242581